When looking at religious poetry, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, I was struck by how overtly feminist some of her work was/is. I found this to be especially true in the except from “A Drama of Exile” where Adam claims equal, if not most of the responsibility for Eve’s succumbing to temptation, and unleashing sin into the world as they were exiled from the Garden of Eden. At the beginning, Eve asks Adam to punish her for what she has done, but he says, “If we have fallen, / It is that we have sinned,—we:” (441-42). This line struck me because of the inclusiveness of the thrice-repeated “we,” emphasizing their shared responsibility in their being cast out of the Garden. I would argue that this speaks to the re-visioning of a text, as Adrienne Rich argues in “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” which in 1972, called for “the act of looking back of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a critical direction…[as] an act of survival” (18). However, as second-wave feminists like Rich were trying to do in the 1970s, women writers of the 19th century had already done. I mentioned this in a previous post, but what I found so fascinating about this text from EBB is that is was already re-visioning classical texts and ideas in a new way that reexamined and reworked long held traditions and ideas (especially patriarchal ideas).
I was brought up with the idea of woman being the source of original sin on Earth because of Eve’s act of disobeying God and succumbing to her temptation in the Garden. However, this poem (is it a poem?) shows a different side to Adam, where he doesn’t want to blame or punish Eve. Adam says,
They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,
If last in the transgression ….
If God,
Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world
Both unto thee and me,—gave thee to me,
The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,
Which sinned against more complement of gifts
And grace of giving. (458-64)
The first two lines speak to Adam’s own acceptance of his guilt in their fall/exile even if he wasn’t the one who did the act. To me, this seems to be speaking to the fact that Adam asked God for Eve out of his own pride and boredom, and God made Eve out of Adam’s rib, so therefore he is as much to blame as she is in the fall. He asked for her and he is apart of her.
In connecting this poem to political and love poems, it could be considered all of the above. There is a clear political agenda, which is empowering the first woman’s status as equal to Adam, not simply a part of him that sinned. In addition, the love that Adam has for Eve is why he is able to admit his own part in the fall and convince Eve that she shouldn’t be punished by him because God’s punishment and Earth’s punishment is enough (491-92). So, while some poems clearly fit into one genre, it seems that they more often fall into many categories. This can also be affected by the audience reading the power. Our perspective changes our meaning for the poem.
When looking at religious poetry, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, I was struck by how overtly feminist some of her work was/is. I found this to be especially true in the except from “A Drama of Exile” where Adam claims equal, if not most of the responsibility for Eve’s succumbing to temptation, and unleashing sin into the world as they were exiled from the Garden of Eden. At the beginning, Eve asks Adam to punish her for what she has done, but he says, “If we have fallen, / It is that we have sinned,—we:” (441-42). This line struck me because of the inclusiveness of the thrice-repeated “we,” emphasizing their shared responsibility in their being cast out of the Garden. I would argue that this speaks to the re-visioning of a text, as Adrienne Rich argues in “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” which in 1972, called for “the act of looking back of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a critical direction…[as] an act of survival” (18). However, as second-wave feminists like Rich were trying to do in the 1970s, women writers of the 19th century had already done. I mentioned this in a previous post, but what I found so fascinating about this text from EBB is that is was already re-visioning classical texts and ideas in a new way that reexamined and reworked long held traditions and ideas (especially patriarchal ideas).
I was brought up with the idea of woman being the source of original sin on Earth because of Eve’s act of disobeying God and succumbing to her temptation in the Garden. However, this poem (is it a poem?) shows a different side to Adam, where he doesn’t want to blame or punish Eve. Adam says,
They know me. I am deepest in the guilt,
If last in the transgression ….
If God,
Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world
Both unto thee and me,—gave thee to me,
The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,
Which sinned against more complement of gifts
And grace of giving. (458-64)
The first two lines speak to Adam’s own acceptance of his guilt in their fall/exile even if he wasn’t the one who did the act. To me, this seems to be speaking to the fact that Adam asked God for Eve out of his own pride and boredom, and God made Eve out of Adam’s rib, so therefore he is as much to blame as she is in the fall. He asked for her and he is apart of her.
In connecting this poem to political and love poems, it could be considered all of the above. There is a clear political agenda, which is empowering the first woman’s status as equal to Adam, not simply a part of him that sinned. In addition, the love that Adam has for Eve is why he is able to admit his own part in the fall and convince Eve that she shouldn’t be punished by him because God’s punishment and Earth’s punishment is enough (491-92). So, while some poems clearly fit into one genre, it seems that they more often fall into many categories. This can also be affected by the audience reading the power. Our perspective changes our meaning for the poem.